Myth #4: Kids need to master the earliest and easiest phonological awareness skills in order to be successful at phonemic awareness.
Phonics Myth Busters Series
Myth #4: Kids need to master the earliest and easiest phonological awareness skills in order to be successful at phonemic awareness.
Were you like us? We understood this to be true - it makes sense, but research seems to show otherwise.
Susan Brady (2020) defines phonological awareness as an “umbrella term” which includes phonological sensitivity (rhyme, onset/rime, and syllables) and phoneme awareness which she defines as the “conscious awareness of the individual phonemes in spoken words.” This refers to understanding, taking apart, putting together, manipulating the smallest sounds in words (for example, the word ‘chop’ has three phonemes, three smallest sounds).
So. Does phonological sensitivity (working with the bigger parts) have to come first? That’s a question Susan Brady wrote about that has really blown our minds. Here’s the paper for a longer read.
Let’s check out a few studies that Brady points us to.
First: Cary and Verhaeghe (1994) reference a study of two groups of students who received instruction on phonological awareness. One group’s instruction included rhymes, syllables, and phonemes, while the other group’s involved just rhymes and syllables. Afterwards, both groups were assessed on multiple measures, including phonemic awareness. Only students trained in phonemic awareness showed progress in the area of phoneme awareness. This shows instruction in phoneme awareness matters. It makes a difference.
Second: Cary and Verhaeghe (1994) also reference another study in which groups of students were set up with either syllable or phoneme training. Students trained on phoneme awareness were able to later figure out (sort of generalize) how to work with larger units of sounds, but students trained in syllable awareness were not able to take on work with individual phonemes (or, sort of generalize) in the same way.
Susan Brady (2020) states this instructional recommendation:
Phonological awareness instruction in kindergarten should concentrate on early phoneme awareness, not on phonological sensitivity. ...make no mistake: it is phoneme-level awareness skills that directly support learning to read and spell.
She then notes that phoneme awareness instruction should continue into first grade, becoming more complex. (Beginning and ending sound in CVC and then moving to medial sound. Also blending and segmenting two and three phoneme words.) She argues that focusing more and earlier on phonemic awareness will lead to more progress for all students, especially students who need the most support acquiring these skills.
So, the bottom line is this: If you are working in K-2 classrooms and doing phonological awareness work, give yourself a check: Are you supporting students’ phonemic awareness, first and foremost?